In a decision that's bound to infuriate the leaders of Canada and the UK, the US Commerce Department on Friday tacked on an additional 80% tariff against Bombardier C-Series Jets imported from the US's northern neighbor, adding to a 220% preliminary levy authorized last week. The ruling is the culmination of a long-running feud between Boeing and Bombardier; Boeing accused its rival in April of benefiting from anticompetitive government subsidies. US customs will now begin imposing the now 300% combined tariff, potentially complicating Delta Air Lines' pending purchase order of 75 C-Series jets, a deal that would've been worth some $5 billion to Bombardier. As the National Post noted, the decision will make it effectively impossible for Bombardier to sell its planes in the US. It also has important ramifications for the aerospace industry in both Canada and the UK, and also casts doubt on Bombardier's future after a rocky stretch of thin sales.

Quote:

"The United States is committed to free, fair and reciprocal trade with Canada, but this is not our idea of a properly functioning trading relationship," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

"We will continue to verify the accuracy of this decision, while do everything in our power to stand up for American companies and their workers."

Bombardier hasn't responded to the decision, but last week said the 220% tariff was "absurd and divorced from the reality about the financing of multibillion-dollar aircraft programs" and that it would push for the decision to be reversed in the coming months. Bombardier has long maintained that Boeing can't justify its claim of being harmed by the C-Series since it doesn't manufacture any jets of comparable size.

The Commerce Department was expected to announce the preliminary anti-dumping duties yesterday, but last night said it would hold off until today. Bombardier has said it's confident the American penalties will be overturned and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has blasted Boeing for its complaint, and has said the Canadian government will halt all orders of Boeing equipment until the company drops the complaint. The Premier of Quebec Philippe Couillard has painted the tariffs as "an attack on Quebec" and has said that the province will "resist" the decision. Trudeau is due to visit Washington on Oct. 10 for two days of talks on trade and other issues with President Trump as Canada, Mexico and the US struggle to revise the Nafta trade agreement before their self-imposed year-end deadline. Experts have said they don't expect the Bombardier tariff to impact Nafta talks.

Bombardier's shares have benefited recently from rumors that the company is on the verge of closing major deals with Chinese airlines, but there was little reaction on Friday because the decision was widely expected.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “bitterly disappointed” by last week’s decision, considering Bombardier employs more than 4,000 people at a factory in Belfast, an important constituecy for May's conservative party. UK Trade Secretary Liam Fox and Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney reportedly discussed the Bombardier tariffs with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross this week.

The case now goes to the International Trade Commission, which is expected to make a final ruling to decide whether Boeing suffered damages as a result of Bombardier's anti-competitive practices. If an affirmative ruling is returned, damages will be assessed. [....]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/.....r-c-series

The jobs we were saving with all the bailouts were in ... Ireland?

This gets crazier and crazier all the time. We are providing the capital for a company that is producing planes in Ireland to avoid Canadian wages (I guess)? I thought we were buying jobs.

Are the "loans" ever repaid? Who knows? They won't tell us.

Quote:

Bombardiers corporate welfare began, at least federally, in 1966 when it received its first disbursement of $35 million from the federal department, Industry Canada. In the decades since, various Bombardier iterations received over $1.1 billion (all figures adjusted for inflation) in 48 separate disbursements from just Industry Canada. That includes two 2009 cheques worth $233 million.

Most of the money, excepting $55-million in grants, came in the form of conditionally repayable contributionsconditional loans where repayment depends on the performance of a particular project.

... Montreal-based Bombardier is challenging what it calls the Boeing-Airbus "duopoly" in single-aisle jetliners with its C Series of twinjets, and last year secured an order from U.S. carrier Delta Airlines for 75 of them. The problem is that Bombardier leveraged billions of dollars in Canadian taxpayer subsidies to sell the planes for about $20 million each, a fraction of their list price and well below the $33 million they cost to build.

I post this for humour. The way these people flounder around, trying to suck and blow at the same time ...

Quote:

As Trudeau heads to Washington, Trump again muses that ‘NAFTA will have to be terminated’In the past, Trump has said he will cancel NAFTA if the U.S. cannot secure a good deal. This time, he suggested that he will have to terminate the agreement in order to get that deal.

By DANIEL DALEWashington Bureau
Tues., Oct. 10, 2017
WASHINGTON—As he prepares to welcome Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump is musing again about terminating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“I happen to think that NAFTA will have to be terminated if we’re going to make it good. Otherwise, I believe you can’t negotiate a good deal,” Trump told Forbes magazine in an interview published Tuesday.

“(The Trans-Pacific Partnership) would have been a large-scale version of NAFTA. It would have been a disaster. It’s a great honour to have — I consider that a great accomplishment, stopping that. And there are many people that agree with me. I like bilateral deals.”

Trump is scheduled to meet with Trudeau at the White House on Wednesday, the same day the fourth round of NAFTA renegotiation talks will begin in a Washington suburb.

Trump has threatened to terminate NAFTA on several numerous occasions, appearing to see such threats as a useful negotiating tactic.

The latest remark was slightly different. In the past, he has usually said he will cancel the agreement if the U.S. cannot secure a good deal. This time, he suggested that a good deal can only be secured after a cancellation.

Canadian officials have brushed off the Trump administration’s previous harsh rhetoric, saying such words are inevitable in any trade negotiation. And Trump has frequently declined to act on his musings about trade and other subjects.

Trump spoke amid growing concern that the negotiations could be headed for failure because of the Trump administration’s positions. The fourth round, scheduled to run Wednesday to Sunday, is seen as a crucial test of the level of U.S. interest in reaching an amended deal.

Trudeau will use the meeting to “explain really clearly to the president of the United States that Canada is not America’s problem,” Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told CTV on Sunday.

Trudeau is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Tuesday afternoon. His first event is an onstage interview about women’s economic empowerment at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday, Trudeau, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau and Freeland are scheduled to participate in a roundtable discussion on gender equality. The prime minister and Freeland will then meet with the House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee, an important committee on the trade file.

Next, Trudeau will proceed from the Capitol to the White House for a meeting with Trump that is scheduled for about an hour and a half.

Their time together will be shorter and less elaborate than in February, when Trudeau brought a large delegation of ministers and aides for his first meeting with Trump. A Trudeau official said the Fortune women’s summit, not the Trump meeting, was the original purpose of this visit.

Before heading to Mexico, Trudeau will hold a solo press conference at the Canadian embassy. Trudeau spokesperson Cameron Ahmad said the prime minister would have the prime minister would have been happy to hold the usual joint press conference with Trump, as they did in February, but the White House had “scheduling issues.”

Think about this ... Trudeau arrives in Washington early, to appear at Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Women Summit ... where he and his overworked wife Sophie has found time away from responding to invitations and sending thánk you notes for gifts ... and managing a staff pf nannies and chefs ... to attend a panel on a fresh new topic, gender equality.

Justin is expected to utter platitudes and pose for selfies.

The next day, after getting his face in all the newspapers because of his wonderful use of platitudes about women at the Most Powerful Women Summit, wheere they gave him some kind of tacky souvenir tarted up as an award, perhaps ... Mangina of the Year ... and Justin beams, and says to his mother Look what a good boy am I!

The next day, he will meet Trump himself, alone, without Sophie.

Trump is rushing off to Pennsylvania to a rally to marshall public support for his tax reforms, and getting his agenda through the Congress. On the way out the door, he is going to have a short meeting with Justin. He mused publicly about ending the deal altogether, preferring bi-lateral deals. It's an obvious ploy. He wants to see what Justin can do with that.

Justin will get his 15 minutes with the Presdent, and he will tell the President that Canada is not the source of the US's problems, and Trump will say I know that. And Justin will emerge to his solo news conference, announce progress in bringing Trump around to Canada's point of view, and offer to do selfies with the reporters.

Well, not much being reported. The platitudes are getting stale, and now that we know they are empty, they seem almost offensive.

Quote:

Trudeau talks gender equality (and a little about Trump) at Washington summitInterviewed onstage Tuesday at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed how trade issues affect women differently than men, and had words of advice for female high school students in attendance.

By DANIEL DALEWashington Bureau
Tues., Oct. 10, 2017

WASHINGTON—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talked politely about U.S. President Donald Trump and talked up gender equality at the first event of his second official trip to Trump’s Washington.

Interviewed onstage Tuesday night at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, with Ivanka Trump sitting in the crowd nearby, Trudeau stuck to his usual script for discussing the president he will meet with on Wednesday: avoid controversy, emphasize common ground.

Trudeau still bullish on NAFTA, but admits Canada is ‘ready for anything’
By Stephanie Levitz — The Canadian Press — Oct 11 2017

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emerged from a day of meetings in the U.S. capital Wednesday continuing to champion a continental trade deal that many around him suggest may be doomed.

But even Trudeau finally acknowledged his enthusiasm for the North American Free Trade Agreement can only go so far and there exists the possibility the trilateral pact with the United States and Mexico is in trouble.

"It is very important and very possible to get a win-win-win ... out of these negotiations," Trudeau told a news conference on the roof of the Canadian Embassy.

"So saying, I think it's been clear that circumstances are often challenging, and we have to be ready for anything — and we are."

What anything could look like was raised by U.S. President Donald Trump in his talks with Trudeau earlier Wednesday at the White House.

Terminating the deal is one option he alluded to, and in the past Trump's said doing so would allow something completely new to be written.

Or perhaps separate bilateral deals with Canada and Mexico will be the way forward, the president suggested.

"It's possible we won't be able to reach a deal with one or the other; in the meantime we'll make a deal with one," he said.

But the U.S. president also said it's too early to give up on the negotiations, which resumed Wednesday in nearby Alexandria, Va.

"I think we have a chance to do something very creative that's good for Canada, Mexico and the United States."

Trudeau heads Thursday to Mexico for his first official visit to the country and his sit-down with President Enrique Pena Nieto comes as officials in that country appear to be preparing for the deal to collapse.

Mexico's foreign relations secretary, Luis Videgaray, said Tuesday his country won't accept "limited, managed trade," an apparent reference to demands for higher U.S. and regional content rules on products like automobiles.

"We have to be prepared to say no, and if necessary to get up from the table and if necessary leave the treaty," Videgaray said, adding, "It would not be the end of the world."

Trudeau wouldn't say Wednesday at what point Canada might be prepared to walk away, if ever.

But repeating the "ready for anything" sentiment multiple times suggested a conscious decision to acknowledge that the outcome of the talks may not go Canada's way.

"I continue to believe in NAFTA; I continue to believe that as a continent working together in complementary ways is better for our citizens and better for economic growth, and allows us to compete on a stronger footing with the global economy," Trudeau said.

"So saying, we are ready for anything and we will continue to work diligently to protect Canadian interests, to stand up for jobs, and look for opportunities for Canadian business and citizens of all of our friends and neighbour countries to do well."

Trudeau didn't rule out bilateral deals either.

"We are very aware that there are other potential paths out there, we will address them as they arise."

Trump's commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said it's not new that Trump would consider bilateral agreements.

"The president had indicated earlier that he was receptive to a trilateral, or two matching bilaterals, or (ending) NAFTA," he told a panel discussion late Wednesday.

"I think all he's really saying is he's keeping his options open."

There are multiple sticking points in the talks, some of which were raised at meetings Trudeau held earlier Wednesday with the key House of Representatives committee that oversees trade.

Interesting that the article doesn't mention that Justin spent most of the day at a trade show -- on the arm of Crystia Freeland at the Powerful Women Summit. I wonder how many other G-8 countries have a country so well run that their head of state can waste his time on promotions like this.

Nevertheless, he has an ability to attract attention. And Freeland and Trudeau seem to be using the Powerful Women Summit as a backdrop to say things about NAFTA. I would like to know how long the meeting was -- it would give us an indication.

But 'promotion' is pretty much all that Justin can really do -- as he puts it, he's the face of the Liberal Party, and in Washington, Canada as well. The brains are somewhere else. But this is not how the conversations go, at this level.

I wonder -- do the top Liberals think that Trudeau is fooling anybody? He arrives early to participate in a feminist auto da fe. (Why doesn't he just wear a I'm with Hillary bumper sticker on his forehead?)

If you look carefully at Trudeau's comments, he actually doesn't say anything. (What did I tell you about his platitudes?) Just that already chewed gristle of the importance of recognizing our common ground, blah, blah, blah. Trump wrote the book on that stuff, The Art of the Deal.

Then the young prince flies off to conspire with Mexican officials on what to do about Trump. What else will they be doing, except trying to thwart the innovations?

Trudeau has to be crazy if he thinks that Trump isn't on to his smarmy camera-conscious posing. Does Justin think that the CIA's electronic surveillance stopped when Obama left office? We shouldn't be so absurd. More likely, Trump found out everything he needs to know about the Canadian strategies in his morning briefing.

I know that Canada has a negotiating team that is a lot sharper and more professional than the face of the Liberal Party. Let's hope they are ignoring the noise.

I have been seeing the Ireland thing a lot recently online;
The item to consider is that Bombardier has a facility in Ireland as they purchased Short Aviation in the Early 90s (?) and used that facility to manufacture some of their business aircraft which came over from the Short product line.

For the C Series I believe they are doing subcomponants of the C Series, as most C Series planes shipped to Swiss Air all departed from Montreal.

The majority of the engineering and manufacturing of the C Series is done either at Downsview in Ontario or Mirabelle in Quebec.

While the C Series is a huge focus;
We tend to forget the majority of Bombardiers Aerospace production is on the Business Jet side via the legacy Learjet, Canadair, and de Havilland products (The CRJs for example) which are largely manufactured in Canada.

It appears Delta has fired the first shot at the US Department of Commence;

Quote:

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the Atlanta-based airline will not pay tariffs on the Bombardier CSeries and acknowledged the brewing trade dispute between the US and Canada over the aircraft may delay its delivery to Delta. Delta has 75 CS100s on firm order and is scheduled to take delivery of its first in the spring of 2018.

There was also an interesting secondary theory on why Boeing has such a bee in their bonnet over the C Series citing their concern that Bombardier has seemingly been more successful in growing the business in China recently which Boeing would like to slow.

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